Titan (Animals)?! Bulma and Mikasa!? And well-written af in terms of not only the world-building but also the amount of descriptive language this person employs (and I'm NOT exaggerating in this department)? Admittedly the premise of this story seemed kind of wacky, but I somehow verily enjoyed reading this story of yours. Well done.

Amazing and creative Youtube videos and image-editing skills. It really felt as if I were reading a fun manga (with text AND images). The only reason why it wasn't placed first was because the writing wasn't as great as it could've been. The writing was primarily dialogue-heavy (where you literally named who spoke what at each second), which isn't bad per se as it really helped with the comic/manga-esque vibe while reading your three-parter story; however, I believe you still could've added more descriptive language here and there in-between the characters' words. All in all though, an amazing job and honestly speaking, the top three had incredibly close scores. Yours could've easily been first place if it were not for the weightings we chose for this challenge.

While it's easy to just say "this entry scored the highest" and be over and done with this judging process, I do have a lot of praise to say for this story. This one definitely surprised me the most in terms of not only its great meshing/mixture of the two anime universes the author chose, but also in terms of HOW they meshed the concept of an anime character from another universe going into a Gundam universe. To do so, the author cleverly made this into a philosophical theme of their short story, in which the main character named Age is conflicted in participating in a war (naturals vs coordinators) that he has no place or initial stake in, for he is an outsider (literally), fighting "in a war that did not belong to him". What causes him to move forward from this though is what Kira said: "it doesn't matter where you belong to, as much as the things you wish to protect". The best quote from this story was: "[Age] did not belong there, he did not want to take part in yet another war, but he wanted to protect what he had found in a world where he was all alone" :') This story definitely made an impression on me.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR ANIME AMINO!

WELCOME TO THIS MONTH’S CHALLENGE!

Without a doubt, Gundam has become an international cultural icon for anime and the mecha genre. From museums, cafes, video-games, arcade machines, a worldwide gundam figure-making competition (GBWC), to even a life-sized transformable Gundam statue in Japan, otakus the world over have flocked to see just what is so mesmerizing about the franchise.

"Transformation" of lifesized Unicorn Gundam statue at Odaiba

With Gundam being an anime most people (even non-anime fans) know about, it would make sense to hold a Gundam/sci-fi related competition on Anime Amino! Thus, we are pleased to announce that Gundam Amino and Anime Amino have officially come together to bring you the “Gundam Amino x Anime Amino” collab event!

WAIT!

Even if you don’t know ANYTHING about Gundam nor like it, we have SPECIFICALLY tailored this event so that ANYONE with at least some interest in SCIENCE-FICTION and/or CREATIVE STORY-WRITING can participate!

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THE CHALLENGE

Using the hashtag #GundamAnimeCollab, take your favorite anime character(s) and make a creative short story about them in the Gundam universe. Don’t know much about the Gundam universe? That’s fine! Simply write a short story in a sci-fi universe that you create yourself! The only requirement is that your universe MUST have sci-fi elements and have mech suits!

Be creative! Want your favorite anime characters to be Gundam/mobile suit pilots? Then do so! Want some of them to be commanders of spaceships? You can do that as well! Not only that, but you can even have your characters pilot an existing Gundam/mobile suit from one of the many Gundam series in the franchise! Or, you can even design your own suit with a bit of image-editing/artistic skills! Feel free to ask your friends if you don’t know how to edit photos/pictures or draw, but make sure to credit them! If you know how to make custom “gunpla” (AKA “GUNdam PLAstic model figures“) by mixing and matching parts from different kits, you could even do that as well instead of drawing/editing an image of a custom mech design!

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DEADLINE

The deadline is around one month from now: February 9th, 2018 @ 9:00 PM EST. Any entry submitted after this time and date will NOT be accepted.

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JUDGING PROCESS

Through a combined vetting and voting process amongst Anime Amino and Gundam Amino curators/leaders, we will choose the best entry based on the following:

•creativity

•grammar/level of writing (i.e. sophisticated > basic English)

•structure (is there a sense of order/continuity? Is it coherent/does it all hang together well?)

•entertainment (is it interesting to the judges? Or is it just a bland, boring story with no meaning or point?)

•BONUS POINTS for an image or photo of your custom gundam/gunpla (note though these bonus points won't save you if your story isn't good)

ADDITIONAL BONUS POINTS are available if you utilize your knowledge of the Gundam universe in the story. Note that this isn’t going to be weighted as heavily as the five above. These bonus points will ONLY matter in the event of a tiebreaker, i.e. we receive two equally exceptional entries and where one utilizes Gundam lingo/knowledge whereas the other does not.

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PRIZE

As usual, if you win this competition, you will receive your very own custom title! Note that this title must be relevant your entry/story.

We hope to see some amazing entries by you guys! Happy writing!

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EXAMPLES

Looking for some inspiration? Two Anime Amino users who are a Gundam Amino leader & curator, respectively, have quickly written up some typical example entries!